HORSE. - St. Paul, addressing the Corinthians, invites them to act in such a way as to reach the goal, that is, heaven, as in the stadium where many run and only one wins the prize: «sic currite ut comprehendatis» (I Cor. 9:24).
The horse therefore represents the faithful in the race of life; in an epitaph from Tharros a horse is scratched in, bearing, in place of the owner's mark, the monogram of Christ (G. B. De Rossi, Del c. simbolico sull'iscrizione di Tharros, in Bull. di archeol. crist., 2nd series, 4 [1873], pp. 135-39 and pl. XI, 2); in an inscription from Trier one sees the monogrammatic cross with the letters A and Ω between two horses (E. Le Blanc, Recueil des inscriptions chrétiennes de la Gaule, Paris 1866, pl. XXXI, no. 188). Of a deceased person it is said in his inscription that he «cucurrit opere maxime», that is, he had run in the way of good works. The horse is also represented on the reverse of terracotta lamps; examples with horses bearing an impressed cross-mark have been found at Carthage and Syracuse. Sometimes, however, the horse indicates only the trade practiced by the deceased, as in the well-known inscription of Domitilla in which the deceased Constans drives his two horses, which are named Barbarus and Germanus.
Bibliography
Enrico Josi